quickie, Nathan, she thought, as she struggled to get through the airlock hatch.
“Bridge! Airlock fourteen! Nash is in!”
“All ahead full!” the captain ordered.
Nathan immediately brought the mains up to full power, feeling the acceleration as it pushed him back into his chair. Those dampeners are pretty damned good, he thought.
“How long until we get clear?” the captain asked again.
“Five minutes, Sir,” Cameron responded.
Nathan wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a touch of fear in her voice. Perhaps she’s human after all?
The rail gun fire continued to rock the ship, diminishing as their distance from the enemy increased. The captain’s mind was racing furiously, searching for options. If he put a torpedo into her, it might stop the overload. But it might also kill the brave lieutenant that was sacrificing himself to buy them some time. And it also might trigger the overload even sooner. If he had his FTL fields, he could probably accelerate past light speed and get clear, but all the emitters were being used by the special projects team. That’s when the idea struck him.
“Doctor Karlsen!” the captain said, spinning around. “Can we make another jump?”
“You cannot simply snap your fingers and jump as you say,” he argued. “It takes time to recharge the energy banks…”
“…How much time?”
“At least one hour for every light year traveled,” the Doctor explained. “But there are other considerations…”
“There is enough energy currently in the banks for a transition back to Earth, Captain,” Doctor Sorenson interrupted. Public speaking was not her father’s strength, nor was seeing the big picture quickly. For all his brilliance in physics, he tended to have tunnel vision in such matters. “But it takes time to calculate a transition sequence…”
“…How long?”
“Too long, I’m afraid,” she admitted.
“What about Earth? Didn’t you already have a sequence programmed to return to Earth?”
“Yes, but we’re not even headed in the right direction. And we’re already a considerable distance from our original departure point. I would have to recalculate…”
The captain was getting tired of all the details. He just wanted to know if he could use the Jump Drive to get away. “Ensign, how long would it take to get back to our original arrival point?”
“Maybe three minutes,” Cameron estimated. “But that’s only if we take a direct route, which would take us back into their weapons range.”
“Doctor, what would happen if we jumped using the sequence calculated for a return to Earth on our present course?”
Doctor Karlsen was flabbergasted, and began babbling in Danish at his daughter. His daughter just ignored him, focusing her attention on the captain, as she knew he was just trying to get them out of an impossible situation.
“Honestly, I do not know,” she admitted. “The safety protocols may not even accept the execute command, since the ship’s heading does not match the…”
“…Can you override the safety protocols?”
“Yes, but…”
“…Do it!” he commanded.
“Captain, this is not a good idea,” Doctor Karlsen protested.
Doctor Sorenson spoke to her father in Danish, trying to calm him down as she frantically tried to override the safety protocols.
“Captain!” the sensor operator exclaimed. “Their reactor’s about to go!”
“Doctor?” the captain urged. “We’re running outta time!”
“There she goes!” the sensor operator cried out.
“Now Doctor! JUMP!”
Doctor Sorenson tapped a few more keys before hitting the execute button.
“Initiating Transition Sequence!” she announced.
The ship was struck hard by the shock wave of the antimatter explosion as it disappeared in a bright flash of blue-white light.
“Transition complete!” Doctor Sorenson announced, obvious relief in her voice.
Nathan lowered his hand from his eyes. This time, he had shielded his face from the bright flash of the jump as it was carried into the bridge by the forward view screen. As he looked over to Cameron, he could see that she had done the same. He looked to his right and saw the sensor operator picking himself up off the floor.
“Status!” the captain bellowed.
Nathan looked over his console, checking that everything was in order. He looked over at Cameron, who nodded that her systems were fine as well.
“Helm is oper…”
“…Contacts!” the sensor operator yelled out. “Multiple contacts, all around us! Transferring tracks to tactical!”
“What the hell? Where are we?” the captain asked.
The ship suddenly began taking fire, with massive explosions rocking the ship violently. The force of the ordnance was far more severe than what they had experienced earlier with the two Jung patrol ships.
There was the smell of something burning, like an electrical fire, and Nathan could hear the sound of short circuits coming from behind him.
“Return fire, all batteries!” the captain ordered.
“Which ship do we shoot at, sir?” the commander asked.
“Target the biggest one that’s shooting at us!” the captain ordered. “At least until we figure out who the hell we’re fighting!”
“All the fire is coming from the biggest contact, sir!”
“Then that’s your target, Commander.”
“She’s huge, Captain,” the commander exclaimed. “Gotta be twice the size of our Defender class ships!”
“What? The Jung don’t have anything that big!”
“We’ll never take her out with rail guns, sir. Suggest we give her a full spread of torpedoes!”
“Helm! Hard to starboard! Bring us to bear on the biggest ship!”
Nathan quickly turned the ship hard to starboard until the biggest enemy ship came into the middle of his screen. They were coming in on the enemy ship’s port side, and would have a perfect shot with their torpedoes.
“Get a solution, tubes one through four, and prepare to fire!” the captain ordered.
“Sir, those smaller ships, the multi-colored ones,” Nathan said. “They’re fighting the big one just like us!”
“What the hell did we jump into?” the captain muttered.
Seeing the Aurora turn into her, the larger ship immediately trained all her guns on her new attacker, ignoring the smaller vessels.
“She’s trying to stop us short!” the commander yelled as the ship shook even more from the intense barrage of enemy rounds.
All about the bridge, circuits were shorting out, pieces were falling off the walls and panels, even a beam fell across the port exit, killing one of the Marine guards that had still been standing his post. Nathan found himself flinching repeatedly as rounds streaked towards them on the view screen, barely missing the cameras before striking nearby.
“Firing solution locked!” the XO announced.
“Fire all forward tubes!”
On either side of the Aurora’s leading upper edge of the main propulsion section, doors again slid open to reveal the torpedo launch tubes. Nearly simultaneously, four torpedoes shot out, their thrust plumes burning brightly behind them as they streaked towards their targets.
“One through four away!” the XO announced. “At this range, those nukes are gonna shake us good,
